6 (Un)conventional "Wisdoms" on How to Finish in Top 100 in FPL - part 6

So, it has finally come down to this – the final chapter of the series. The 6 (Un)conventional “wisdoms”, as I call them, chapter 6.

In the first 5 chapters I have shared with you all of the “technical savvy” and tricks I have in my arsenal that have enabled me to finish last season as 15^th player overall in the FPL. And, I have to admit; I have had so much fun writing these posts, that I even neglected my own team for the new season in order to prepare the posts in time (errrrr, my team is still in total disarray at the moment). And, boy oh boy, was I blown away by the buzz the series generated on Twitter and the enormous number of people flocking to the official FPL Hints blog to read my ramblings. Thank you for this, it really means a lot. [wipes away tears of joy, sobs] Moving on.

To be completely honest, I already kind of started my vacation this week, while the previous week I had home office (really HOME office, back in Slovenia) for the entire week and hanging out with family and friends in the evening. You can imagine that my schedule didn’t really leave much time for writing. But, I need to do it now. As of today, I am off to the Croatian coast where I have no guarantee of internet access (which worries me as, because as said, I don’t really have my GW1 team put together AT ALL!). But, we’ll worry about that when sh** hits the fan, as the Americans like to put it. It’s not like GW1 is the most important GW of the season. Ahem, ahem.   [sarcasm off]

As of today, we are T-9 days until kickoff and I assume most of you reading this blog have already assembled your respective teams, took them apart completely, tried to squeeze in both RVP and Bale (which is borderline impossible if you want to have a strong TEAM), contemplated whether Baines is worth the investment this year (while I have NEVER EVER had him in my team, I had actually read a really cool article on FFPundits regarding this conundrum that had me thinking – no final decision made yet - link), let out a scream of enthusiasm when the news of Bale asking for a transfer to Real Madrid came out, tried to be smart about newcomers like Soldado, Bony, RvW and others, somehow built the team again, read a different opinion on one of the TOP20 FPL sites that Walt from #fplhintsteam put together, completely changed your mind, cursed, cursed again, turned to gods for help, started screaming, lashed out on your computer and started inconsolably crying because you just can’t fill your team with ALL the players you would want...and then went back to the drawing board. Too bad you cannot take a loan on FPL money, something like 20M GBP would probably do the trick, huh?

You see, the (Un)conventional wisdom #6 touches exactly that and MUCH more. However stupid, simple and straightforward this last wisdom might seem, it is actually my TOP recommendation for all FPL players out there.

Huh? Has he gone mad? What kind of a dumb*** lame advice is this? I bet these are some of the thoughts currently running through your mind, coupled with the annoying feeling that you have just lost 2 minutes and 13 seconds of your life that you will JUST never again get back.

Relax. Let me elaborate on my advice.  It has three distinctive parts:

PART I – Really, just have FUN

For me, there is nothing like the Saturday morning. First off all, you know you still have today AND tomorrow before you need to go back to work. Second of all, you already know that in a couple of hours there will be the first game of the week and you sense the adrenaline rush building up. The siren goes off. No more transfers. It’s just you and your team right now. You check the points for the current GW for the very first time. The game is still being updated. Sigh. You wait for the starting lineups to be published on your Twitter feed. Ka-ching. First 2 points registered. You made the right choice fielding the differential midfielder just for this week. Then the first game starts and every time the player you have on your team gets the ball you observe with anticipation if there is a possibility he can smack one down the middle and score a goal from 70 yards down. Sadly it does not happen. But hey, you can always hope for some bonus points as the game ended in a draw. You refresh your score for the GW and quickly check the guys in your private league if someone actually had the guys who scored or assisted on their teams. When you find one, you think to yourself “You lucky son of a gun…PURE LUCK!” 

Before you know it, the rest of the games start. You pick one to watch, but always keep an eye on the game where your captain is playing, hoping he will score at least three goals and have five assists. With all the reservation you possess you limit yourself to refreshing the data on your smartphone of choice only every 5 minutes.  Every time you hit refresh button you hold your breath and pray to god that it will show a massive improvement over the score total you had before. As the games move into the second parts of second halves, you already cash in the 4 points for defenders with clean sheets and nervously cough every time the opponent makes it over to their half of the field. And god forbid your defenders concede a goal in the waning moments of the game – you really feel cheated about those 4 points. And so on and so forth. This, for me at least, is by far THE BEST PART – this is what I mean by having fun. Enjoy it. Even if you don’t do well, the sheer anticipation of what happens every GW is enough to keep your juices flowing. Don’t berate yourself or congratulate yourself too much either, just enjoy it. Repeat after me: 

PART II. – Don’t overthink and/or overcomplicate

You see, this is one advice I would like to put out there that does not only come in handy when playing FPL, but also in real life.  Too much information leads to overcomplicating and causes confusion. My advice – LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF FPL INFORMATION you soak in. For me it means no more than 3-4 dedicated FPL sites. No more. I have my sites, I trust their judgment and advice and apart from looking for a replacement for one of my favorite sites (Never CaptainNicky Butt – you will be sorely missed!), I have no intention of adding new ones. Thanks to Walt’s list of Top20 FPL sites, I should have no issues finding a replacement.

PART III. – Don’t be too smart for your own good

I have seen this over and over again – people who know a whole lot about Premier League tend to, and I will use the same word again, overcomplicate and fill their teams with differentials. Play it smart, but not too smart. Have you fair share of “players who everyone has”, “must-haves”, jump on one or two bandwagons a year, just because it really makes sense. You do not have to reinvent the wheel… (feel free to re-read my differentials chapter to learn more about this).

After last year, I can see myself going in that direction as well – looking for non-obvious players choices, having too many differentials in my team vs. the proven, more obvious ones, and I realize I need to wipe my slate clean and start from scratch. It’s a new season. Anyone can win it, just like Matt has last year (btw, have you read his story?). Will it be you this year?

I have already started implementing all of my wisdoms (especially the last one) in my team for the upcoming season and I must admit – it is harder than last year. But the more challenging it gets, the more fun it will be during the season, right? All the best to all of you and make sure you come back during the season, I will continue to write for FPL Hints blog all season.

And that’s it, folks! The last of my wisdoms for you. I hope you make use of all of them and they will make your season a memorable one!

And, as always, looking forward to your comments – reach me on Twitter (@matejp23).

In case you have somehow missed the (un)conventional “wisdoms” from #1 to #5, make sure you read them before the start of the season!

Wisdom #1 – “Spend all your money”

Wisdom #2 – “Buy only 1 mid/high tier goalkeeper – no alternating”

Wisdom #3 – “Invest in a disproportionately strong midfield”

Wisdom #4 – “Avoid bandwagons as much as possible”

Wisdom #5 – “Be smart about how you play the differentials”

6 (Un)conventional "Wisdoms" on How to Finish in Top 100 in FPL - part 5

After 4 installments, it is finally time to crack something that gets tossed around all the time in the FPL dictionary and everyone seems to have a different opinion about it – the differentials. Before we go deeper and look behind the scenes, let us stop at the definition of what a differential actually is. This is what the Chief @fplhints has written about it:

A differential is a player that is not owned by many FPL gamers but has the potential to obtain a high number of points and ultimately the successful differential does so.  The fact is that as the season progresses more and more FPL teams begin to look the same, which means that there isn't much to differentiate you from other FPL gamers.  Treat your FPL team like a business, i.e. they need a successful unique selling point, you need an almost unique player.

Plan ahead and look at various factors ranging from upcoming fixtures, injuries, suspensions along with under-picked gems.  Such thinking could help you discover a winner.  I define a differential as a Premier League player that is owned by less than 5% of FPL gamers.  Other definitions may put that at 1% or less, but I think 5% is a good cut off point to determine a differential.  Be careful not to go overboard on differentials as it could prove risky if they lack in appearances, show inconsistent form or are squad rotated often.  Perhaps limit yourself to one differential per position at the very most.  Ultimately picking a differential will differentiate you from the FPL pros and the FPL amateurs.

Overall, I agree with the definition. The differential needs to have differential qualities if we want to achieve differentiation (kind of makes sense, huh? J). Let us, for the sake of simplification, assume that there are three categories of FPL players out there, taking into the account their knowledge on FPL and football overall. While this might be a disturbing oversimplification for dedicated football fans, it will only be used to portrait the point. Alternatively, you can always skip this paragraph, no hard feelings from my side, I assure you.

I would say that a rookie is a player who is just starting with fantasy football and/or does not know much about Premier League (Blasphemy, right? By the way, that was me 3 years ago. Guilty on both counts.)  An experienced player is someone who has played the game for a couple of years now and could properly identify 80% of players playing in Premier League. The All-stars are people who have followed Premier League for more than a decade and have played fantasy football since year 1. If you wake them up in the middle of the night, they can tell you how much was Torres worth (in FPL, of course) back in 2007 and who had the third assist in 5^th game of GW7 in season 2011/12. Can you put yourself somewhere? J

Now, again for the sake of fun, let us assign each of these groups of players a description on how they play the differential card:

1)     Rookies usually follow the lead, which in return offers them little to no differential. They usually scout the forums and when they see that the “experienced” or “all-star” players start talking about who is a “must have” for next GW, they go out and buy that “differential”.

2)   Experienced players are for me the ones who follow the lead when necessary AND look for non-obvious differentials. I kind of think of them as the ones who only start to tap into the potential that these differentials can bring. If successful, they can reach for the stars (that was me last year), if not, they get discouraged and revert back to the rookie approach (me 2 years ago).

3)   All-stars are, as said, the ones who know everything about football. Which usually takes a toll on them. They know so many different possible combinations of differentials that they usually end up taking too wild of differentials, just because they think other people might recognize the more “obvious” ones. Trust me when I say this, we don’t!

You might want to argue that this really is an oversimplification – and I do agree. But I do want to outline one conclusion that comes out of this - rookies can hardly bet on the differential as they try to follow the lead of experienced or veteran players and never actually own a differential as such as the differential is no longer a differential. Experienced players understand that in some cases you need to follow the herd and play it wisely with selecting just enough of a differential that it can boost your ranking and not hurt you in case it doesn’t work out. All-stars have played the game for a very, very long time and usually are the most knowledgeable about all things football. In my experience they usually take too much of a gamble which in certain cases might bring them over the top, but usually costs them in the rankings.

The point that I am trying to illustrate with this is that while it is really important to introduce a differential player or players every now and then, the player should really represent a differential, but a clever one. Make sure you disperse the risk and not just fill your team with differentials just because you know so much about football. If your differentials turn out to be failures, no one will regard you as an expert.

This, my dear reader, THIS is the million dollar question. And my honest answer would have to be – I don’t know. I really don’t. But before you get all upset, the thing is, no one really does. I believe this next comment that Mito 21 posted to one of my articles, sums it up perfectly, and I quote:

However, with this in mind, I have compiled a couple of advices for you on how to select the right differentials that have worked for me last year. And I would like to share them with you today.

1.   Start the season with a differential

It is really important to have a good start to a season. Think about it – the higher you are in the rankings after the first couple of GWs, the less nutty differentials you need to take later in the season. Which means that you can play it safe (you know, RVP(c) safe), while others need to do all sort of crazy things if they ever want to catch you. Last year I opted for Torres as captain in GW1, knowing that the majority of FPL population will not even consider this “has-been” as a potential valid option for GW1. He rewarded me with 18 points, which is not too shabby. And I had Hazard and Michu in the first 11 and we all know what they did in the first part of the season. For me, THIS was the key to the successful season.

My advice – do your homework for GW1 and select 2-3 differentials (2-3 from high-tier and 1 from mid-tier – i.e. finding the next Michu)

2.     Look for great players from good teams who have had a couple of below par games

This one is my favorite. I love when top players don’t score for a couple of GWs. You see, we are all really impatient and this is especially valid for all sort of games we play, from gambling to sport bets, to name just a few. And I just know when someone mentions that this and that player has not really delivered in the past couple of weeks (obviously using a more foul language) that we are going to have an exodus of people selling that player. So I wait and wait until I see the price drop and the ownership significantly decreases. That’s when I snatch him and grin. This is my ticket. Example? Suarez after GW 5. EVERYONE was selling him. I bought him when he was at his lowest value. And I knew Liverpool wasn’t as bad as it looked in the first couple of GWs. He immediately rewarded me with a hat-trick and instantly brought with him a differential of around 20 points.

3.   Identify a player who is really, really cheap and could potentially explode – I.e. diamond in the rough

Point in case? Sterling. I got him for I think 4,6 M and he rewarded me with several goals, assists and snatching up bonus points. For 4,6M! Now that is a differential!

4.   Look out for players on a mission or who have something to prove

These players might be out on a personal mission, like Torres was at the beginning of the season and I was oh so ready so take him into my team. You could sense that he really wanted to show that he still has some fire left in him and some good performances. And I have to admit that I actually thought that he is going to have an even better season than he ended up having. Suarez falls into this category as well, I mean, come on, he said at the beginning of the season that he will win the Golden Boot. You might not like him as a person, but man, his confidence and skill? Thirdly, at the end of the season, look for players who are battling relegation. They are for sure going to overdeliver on their price tag. Remember Remy? Kone?  

At the end of the day, what I am trying to say is:

Try to be as smart as possible when playing the differentials card. Try not to overdo it and try not to follow the herd. Or, if you are a gambling man, bet all on 0 and maybe, just maybe, by the end of the season, you will be the newly crowned king of Fantasy Premier League. You never know…

As always, looking forward to your comments or a tweet on Twitter (@matejp23).

P.S. If you want to read (un)conventional “wisdoms” from #1 to #4, I have all of them here.

Wisdom #1 – “Spend all your money”

Wisdom #2 – “Buy only 1 mid/high tier goalkeeper – no alternating”

Wisdom #3 – “Invest in a disproportionately strong midfield”

Wisdom #4 – “Avoid bandwagons as much as possible”

And as a special tribute to @TheLegendMito21 for using his quote in this article, my “About me” is wearing a special New York Knicks shirt. J